Ezekiel saw a wheel a'rollin'

Yesterday I drove into the village for a meeting, running just slightly late as is my (blush) frequent habit. The sun was blazing away on the clean, white snow, necessitating both dark glasses and a lowered visor. But through all this dazzle I could see a big sweep of sky to the north east. There was a bit of wispy cloud and contrail after contrail, some older and spreading, some knife blade new. There must have been close to a dozen in total and one tiny wink of a jet drawing yet another on its route west. I had my camera in my purse. And the title popped into my mind - 'way in the middle of the air'. But I was already so late that I had no time to stop and try to capture what I could see. And, of course, by the time I got out of my meeting it was past noon and whatever atmospheric conditions had preserved so many contrails had changed.


My mother used to fix me with a cold gray eye and quote 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions.' This, usually, when she caught me with my homework undone, the yard not raked or some other task waiting and found me with my nose in a book instead. Although far more diligent than I, she could frequently be caught nose in book herself and so she never really did train me into methodical behaviour. And living for coming on fifty years with a chronic procrastinator has not helped. So it is that nine months after we got home, I am finally getting around to editing and ordering the photographs from our west coast US trip last May.

 188/365 Oregon coast at Astoria

Thinking about clouds and horizons, I started in to edit the Oregon coast photos and picked this one for the 365 project's post today. I had no idea that there was so much sand beach in Oregon - I somehow had the idea that the coast there was rocky. But that's California, or at least the part of it that we drove. This photo was taken at Astoria on one of the sand bars that frame the mouth of the Columbia river. And it makes a nice contrast to the thought of the 15 cm of snow forecast for tomorrow.

I love the ocean. Stuck as I am in the middle of the continent, I don't get to the ocean all that often, but when I do I am enchanted. The beat of the breaking sea on rocks, the long hiss of an incoming roller on sand, the indescribable scent of salt water, the wind off the waves streaming over my face, the light on the waves and the sand, all of these are a glory and a wonder to me. Swimming in salt water is dreamlike - the denser salt water is a support and a caress. I learned to scuba dive off the Florida keys and will sometimes dream that I am flying through the water there, dancing with silvery swirls of fish, watching the corals and sea plants sway. I would love to dive in the west coast kelp forests someday.

And here I sit, nose in the computer, with the morning cleanup undone, an agenda to set and various other tasks waiting. Almost I can sense a cold gray eye behind me.

Here's a nice redition of the song.

The Penultimate Travel Post

We're home. I have the dust conquered, the laundry mostly done, JG has cut the lawn twice, once in the rain and I'm........... tired. I need a vacation to recover from my vacation. I want to write up a trip diary and the pile of maps and mementoes is more than daunting. I'm right back into the Board schedule (I am off to Toronto for a three day conference on Wednesday) and I feel burned out. Not motivated. All I want to do is sleep in my own bed, where I can get the knee comfortable enough to allow me to snooze for at least four hours at a time, catch up on my reading and stare at the sky. No energy. No concentration. I'm a sad mess. Obviously, holidays are bad for me.

It doesn't help that once you point my husband's face in the direction of home, he just wants to get there. We drove from Colorado Springs to Fort Erie in two and a half days, trading the actual driving every few hours. We stopped at Fort Erie to visit my MIL, who is just adjusting to her new nursing home, and then we put the foot on the pedal and came the rest of the way. Long days and lots and lots of trucks on the interstates. More than I ever remember seeing in past trips. What recession? Commerce is alive and well in the US of A. But trucks make the driving tougher, for me, especially when they pay no attention at all to the speed limits and play leap frog with one another. Uphill. Lovely.

The holiday was made easier in one way by our time staying at the YD's condo. Normally JG wants to be on the move every day when we take one of these marathon trips and so it was nice to have a few days at a time where we did not have to pack and load every morning, unload and unpack every evening, after trolling for a suitable motel. And we had Effie, who is a great help with finding accommodation. Effie is what we named JG's nice new GPS (a Garmin, for those of you interested in these machines), for her efficiency (my father once had a marvellous executive secretary of that name) and so that we could tell her to Effie Off when she tried to make us drive through city cores instead of taking bypasses. When you tell Effie to look for hotels, she comes up with a list by location; I would find a location where there were three or four places listed and we would go there and look for a good spot. Worked beautifully.

Even so, Effie is not an unmixed blessing. I would not rely on her totally as she has some quirks, the most annoying being this desire to have us drive down town. She has some choices you can pre program, fastest route vs most Interstate being one, but she has a low opinion of bypass routes and babbles on trying to persuade the driver to turn off the bypass until you shut her off. Her screen is not really big enough to show the detail we wanted on secondary roads and scenic drives, either. But she is a wonderful help with a lot of stuff. In the USA she shows speed limits for almost all roads (her Canada info is not as detailed, alas) and gives you a countdown to turns with warnings that correlate with the speed you are driving. I also use state maps, an interstate map of all of the USA and touring books (the National Geographic Scenic By Ways book is excellent) and find that this combination gives me everything I need.

More than I want, sometimes. Unfortunately I married a man who thinks it is lots of fun to drive a road that crosses the continental divide three times in two hours. He combed the maps in search of places we could see snow and did we ever find a lot. He's picky about his snow, too. The snowbanks in the Rabbit Ears Pass in Colorado was dirty, he thought, and he was all for driving Independence Pass between Aspen and Colorado Springs to get clean stuff for a photo op. Luckily it was still closed. I am not a happy passenger when I am ascending to 11,000+ feet on a road with no shoulder or guardrail. And I could not drive such a road if my life depended on it. I get dizzy, short breathed with sheer terror and tense to the point of pain from holding on to the car so it will not fall over the edge.

And no, logic has nothing to do with it.

All worth it, for the sheer glory of the scenery in the mountains and on the plains. We drove along with John Denver's Colorado Rocky Mountain High ringing in our ears, stopping at every view point and pull off we could find, taking huge numbers of photographs or just looking and listening. There were some joys that were entirely unexpected. One, for me, was finding tiny villages in New Mexico lush with cottonwood and lilac all in flower, ringing with bird song, tucked into the crevices of the dry and harsh plateaus in places where the rivers ran. Another was a high mesa just east of Raton where there are constant small ponds again alive with birds, dotted through the sere land.

I think it is contrasts that will stay with me the longest. The huge rock formations in their many coloured striations. The equally huge sky. The creeks, swollen with snow melt, rushing down their stony beds. Driving from summer to late spring to early spring as we climbed a pass and dropping down and down to summer once again. The roar of the wind at the top of a pass and the eerie quiet of the inland plateau below it. Black cattle against a green, green hill. The sight of the huge dome of the state capital at Jefferson City seen across the flats as we drove toward it. So much land and so few people.

And, a silly thing, many many squashed raccoons on the highways in the Midwest. Until, as we reached western Kansas and the high plains, there were no more and the roads were clean. It's strange, the things you notice and will remember, sometimes.

At some point I am going to sort and cull my photographs and probably do one more trip post about them. And then I'll be done. Sometime after I have a few more naps.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation- Monday Mission

Well, um, I am not going to get a summer vacation because I am having a spring vacation now. And I have been posting photos of the trip at some somnolent length.
And so, to satisfy the last MM before the summer break,

What I Did after My Vacation

When I got home from Colorado, I had to cut the grass. It was at least knee high in most places, and full of lovely dandilions, all gone to seed. The next thing I had to do was dust the house, and clean up the dead bugs from all the windowsills, wash the clothes we used on vacation and sort out what I needed to do for the CHC board. I shopped for food and restocked with perishables. Then I packed up again and headed for the yearly CHC conference in Toronto. I was not having fun.

Sigh.

We start home tomorrow. Goodbye beautiful Colorado.

On the road -- more mountains

We are back chez YD after a really great circuit north to Golden, west to Steamboat Springs, south to Glenwood Springs and east to CS through Buena Vista. Wonderful scenery. Lots of high roads for JG. He wanted his photo taken in the snow and he got it.

For the mad mountaineer, this was, erm, a high point. Here is the road we drove to reach these heights.

The cruddy stuff at the bottom of this pic is also snow, a windrow left by the plough. JG was disappointed that the snow was not cleaner and therefore proposed to go back via Independence Pass which is 12000'+. Luckily it was closed due to inclement weather. I am told the road is only one lane in places. Whimper.

I got to veg out in the hot springs, and they are wonderful. Lovely and sulphury and bubbly and hot. A nice change from the snow. Steamboat Springs is a fun little town that lives on skiing and white water sports, fishing and hunting. And lives well. Lovely shops and superlative restaurants. I have not had to cook a meal for over three weeks now. Eat your hearts out, my friends.

This is the Yampa River through Steamboat Springs, with the ski hills in the distance.

We toured up to Fish Creek Falls from Steamboat Springs. There is, as you can see, a huge amount of melt water coming down and the falls were spectacular. There is a fine paved walkway to take you to see them, and along this walkway I encountered this little guy, who posed for me.

The only down side for me is that the high tech shot that was supposed to fix my knee did not work and I have been limping, shirking climbs and not sleeping any too well for the whole trip. Yesterday the YD arranged for us to have a tour of the NORAD facility under Cheyenne mountain. I have no photos of this as I gather that if you take a camera in there they have to arrest you and throw you in the clink. Brig? Anyway, a fantastic tour and much enjoyed by the engineer in the family. I kept thinking about how it would have been to be in there during and in the aftermath of a nuclear strike, and shuddering. There were a lot of stairs and ramps and a lot of young and agile fellow tourists. I came home exhausted and was no good yesterday afternoon at all.

But what a place! I have been over and under mountains now and, given my choice, would take Independence Pass. Hoping for a hot spring in which to recover.

We're hanging out at the YD's the last few days. Laundry is done and I have a lot more pics downloaded.

As follow.

Pronghorns. Is this a flock or a herd? JG is all confused, he says.

Capulin Volcano in New Mexico. See the notch on the right side? That is the start of the road that winds all the way to the top. You drive up on the outside. The scenery is fantastic if you can bear to look at it.

This is an extreme telephoto of JG at the bottom of the inside of the cone.

Same shot. Look at the left hand side of the bare patch to see a very tiny JG.

View from the top of Capulin. The tiny snow peaks in the extreme background are in the Sangre de Christos range.

This is Raton mesa, a major landmark on the Santa Fe trail. At least I think it is called that. My notes are really scrambled just here.

You've got to love the weather. And not a black fly or mosquito anywhere.

On the Magic Forest Drive

The Red River, with snow melt.

Some very scruffy buffalo in Highway 64, north east NM.

On the Circle Drive.

The Cimarron River in Cimarron Canyon.

In pueblo country, just outside Taos, NM.

The Rio Grande gorge just east of Taos, New Mexico. I was out on the bridge to take this when two big transport trucks rolled across and the bridge shook like a bowl full of jelly. Not happy, no.

We did the circle drive twice, once each way. The major pass is Bobcat Pass at 9820'. You are looking down at patches of still unmelted snow. And, if you are me, hyperventilating.

Off to climb a volcano tomorrow and walk around the rim. Send oxygen.

On the Road to Santa Fe

Travelling -- photos.

Trip Photos, in no particular order. And I never, never want to get there, for

"...all experience is an arch, where through
Gleams that untravelled world whose margins fade
Forever and forever as you move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.

Or something like that.

The YD's Gorgeous Living Room.

View from Wilkinson Pass, Colorado

Mt Shavano, Colorado

Pike's Peak,Colorado.

The Missouri State Legislature building.

The Missouri River at Jefferson City

One of the sand sculptures at Garden of the Gods, Manitou Springs, Colorado.

These are stone fence posts used in part of Kansas where trees are few and far between.

Travellin'

Hi to everyone from glorious Colorado, where we are hanging out at the YD's house and recovering from four hectic days of driving across the continent. (You want the dead raccoon count? No, I thouht not. Not that we hit them; it must be the season when young and silly adolescent raccoons leave home and head for the highways.)
We drove the southern route; crossed into the States at Sarnia (I have never seen such white teeth in my life as those the Customs Officer used to smile at us -- quite a contrast from the Canada Customs patented snarl.) Spent the night at and drove south through Lansing and down, ending up at St Louis or thereabouts. We picked up I 70 and bombed along it to Colorado. We did take one or two detours, notably a morning following the Missouri upstream. It has a lot of water in it; really roaring along. I will add pics when I find my card reader.
We have a lovely lady inside a GPS who tells us where to go and we have named her Effie (for efficient, ha ha, and also so that when we get annoyed with her carping about our choices we can say Effie Off.
Hey, anything is funny while you drive the interstate through Kansas.

Colorado Rocky Mountain High

Home again, after what the YD assures me is a routine series of airplane flights in which 1.) we were doublecharged for checked luggage, 2.) plane one was over an hour late leaving and so we had to wait interminably for a gate at the other end, 3.) we did the marathon through Denver airport to catch plane 2, and did not have time to buy real food to eat on the plane, 4.) we spent too much time cooling our heels in Toronto airport, no place for real people, 5.) we sat on the apron at the terminal of our last flight because there had been a security alert and 6.) found our luggage had been searched and not resecured or even fully shut again. Today I am tired, jet lagged and bemused. However, my husband did all the laundry while I was away and even did some ironing, I am breathing moist air at a low altitude and the leaves are starting to turn. Life is good.

I have also fished all my photos off the camera (the only work I have done today!) I went up Pike's Peak on the cog railway on Monday and, having lucked out with a seat in the front row of the train, I got some lovely pics. It was snowy up there and heartbreakingly beautiful. And the ride up and down was just as much fun as sliding aroundat the top taking multiple shots of purple mountain fastnessness and the plain from which they can be viewed. (Note to Canadian readers: the lyrics of 'America the Beautiful' were written shortly after the author visited the Peak -- by horsedrawn carriage. This puts the plane journey into perspective, hmm?)

I am also including two Garden of the Gods pics, as promised. There are a lot more, yes, indeed there are. But I cannot resist shots of the YD climbing on things to frame her shots.

Colorado Springs is a lovely place. However, the YD has chosen to live in Manitou Springs, a small town on the western edge of the city. Here there is a small town atmosphere (I walked into town from the Pike's Peak railway station and everyone I passed spoke to me), lovely quirky local restaurants and shops, easy access to the recreational land in the Front Range and beyond and lots of local biking and hiking, not least in Garden of the Gods Municipal park. Suits the YD's lifestyle. The fact that she is taking up residence in a flood plain is something we both missed until she was signing the lease. However, what she plans to keep in the basement garage are boats. So, I guess that covers that.

I am about to stop babbling here and start catching up on my favourite blogging people. But I do plan to be back more regularly, now I have the new rig up and running. Stand by for leaf pics, I guess.